Another Rapier User
by Gaiall
Summary: Sword Art Online was launched on the november 6 2022 and instantly became the most popular MMORPG. But will everything go as planned ? The story will not follow canon because of an OC. Rated M to be safe.


Welcome to Sword Art Online.

The digitalized voice said. And just like that, the character creation screen modelized all around me. It was amazing. Knowing that all of this was just a game, it felt so real. I was in a little circular room. Everything around me was black except for a huge mirror in front of me. The mirror was reflecting someone, but he didn't look like me.

There was something written right above him. "Your character was imported from your beta account. Do you want to keep it ?", with a Yes/No choice under it. It was not a real mirror, but it still worked. The person right before me was my avatar during the beta, so it was basically me. I pressed the "Yes" button, and everything around me started fading in a blue light.

Several seconds later, the blue light was gone. Then the HUD appeared in the corners of my vision, as well as the Town of Beginning in front of me. The HUD was quite simple. In the top left corner was my HP bar underneath my name. On the opposite side, a yellow '!' mark was twitching, meaning that I had new quests, or quests updates. And in the bottom right corner was a summary of my equipment, currently none.

Sword Art Online was a realistic MMORPG, meaning that you could do almost anything, but do it better with the appropriates skills. The HUD was reduced to just a few menu bars, to improve in-game immersion, the game was almost as realistic as real life.

The official game launch started a minute ago, just a few players were on the main place of the Town of Beginning. They were all new players, except for some I recognized from beta. As I was noticing that, I headed to the merchant district, to start the first quest of the game. As I was arriving at the black-smith, I spotted several new players trying to buy weapon, but no one of the beta testers I saw earlier. I went and spoke to one of the black-smith, but this one had a green '?' mark above his head.

\- Hello Traveller, he said, and welcome to our blacksmith.

In sword art online, all the NPCS were IA. But the game developers did an excellent job while creating them, they behaved so much like humans.

\- Thank you. I'm new in the town and I wanted to know if you had a job for me.

This sentence was the one this NPC recognized as the start of the quest _Boar Hunting I_. While not being interesting for both the first and second quest, it became interesting at the third quest. _Boar Hunting III_ was the same as the previous ones, but it unlocked the quest _Massive Hunt_.

 _Massive Hunt_ was the quest giving bonus items, golds and XP upon killing one boss, and then unlocked access to all the others hunting quest. Numerous players would not do the Boar Hunting quest because of the repetitive aspect of the quest. But it gives some golds that I will need later.

\- Of course, young man. We always have jobs for adventurers likes you. Actually, to make the swords grips we need a lot of leather, and we currently need 10. If you could go hunt some boar and bring me 10 boar leather, that would be perfect.

\- Yeah, that's good for me.

While the quest start keyword had to meet certain condition, like asking for a job to do, the quest acceptance one must a be positive answer. And just like that, I started my first quest.

This quest's only difficulty was the walk time. With the Town of Beginning being widest than a Tokyo district, it was almost 1 hour walk from the town's centre. Then I had to hunt the boars. Since the boars didn't drop leather every time, I had to kill at least 30 boars.

* * *

As I walked in the city, I saw more and more people coming from the central place, the game started almost 30 minutes ago so a lot of players connected. On his launch, only 10 thousand copies of Sword Art Online were sold. Argus projected to add players after the firsts days of tests.

You by looking at the players, I could tell which ones were beta testers. Beta testers, or Betas, didn't have the starter gear. Each one had buy at least one equipment piece at a shop. There were few exceptions, like me, who was waiting to buy higher tier gear. Since Tier 1 gear could be buy with the 1000 cols player got when they started, a lot of players tends to buy Tier 1 from the beginning. But if you just used the basic gear to do some quest, you could buy T2 faster. I think Betas knew it, but still bought T1 gear to be ahead of new players.

As I was lost in thoughts, I heard someone talking behind me;

\- Excuse me ?

\- Yes, I answered as I turned around.

\- Hum… But I need some help… and… I couldn't help but notice that you seem to know your way around… Can you help me ?

The person talking to me was a girl. Smaller than me and clearly shy. She had long chestnut hair as well as brownish eyes. She wore the basic gear, but in a red colour. But here comes a huge problem. Communication. I managed to get the quest from the NPC, because it was an NPC. But speaking with an actual player was another thing. I had to find a way to end this conversation.

\- Hum… Not really. I only asked an NPC how to go the fields.

I won't say that I'm bad with people. But that's obviously not what I prefer. I usually only talk to my friends, and they speak with other players, so I don't have to. But was alone in this game, and my friends didn't manage to get one of the first copy of the game. So, I had to take care of that myself.

\- Oh… That's nice. She said. So, can I follow you to the fields ? I'm a bit lost and the map is not clear.

\- Well… I guess you can.

The best thing to do is to accept for now, then go back to being alone when she can manage by herself. As I accepted her request, she smiled brightly looking at me.

\- Well. Since we are going to travel a bit together, shall we introduce ourselves ? She said happily. I am Yuuki Asuna, I am 16…

\- Wowowo. What're you doing ? I mean, I know you're introducing and everything, but you really don't have to. It's an online game you know ?

That's amazing, she's a total noob. I knew that, because the game started today. But she's worse. It looks like she never played an online game. And now she's following me. Way too enthusiastically.

\- Listen. In an online game, you never give any real-life information, only things game related. Like your in-game name, your level… Be careful about that.

\- Oh… I'm sorry then. She said while looking down.

\- If you understand, it's ok. But I won't ask anything about you. So, don't ask anything about me. Ok ?

\- Why ? She started but stopped when she saw how I looked at her. Ok.

\- Then if we're ok, let's go.

I tried not to shiver as we talked, but it was almost impossible. Stopping the conversation right there was the best thing to do. And we headed toward the fields.

* * *

 **Thank you for reading. This is my first fanfiction and it's in english (it's not my main language). So please review I really need it to improve my writing skill.  
See you next chapter,  
Gaiall.**


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